OPINION
Dominic and the Bike Matrix Team at Eurobike
something either way. What we learned because we were around when Boost was new, or when thru-axles were new, disc brakes were new, 10-speed was new, or when we had to learn the hard way when something we’d never seen before turned up to be fixed and pulling it apart and having a crack at it was our only option. We worked in this shop or that shop, and sold this brand or that brand, giving us exposure to new technology, new terminology and new skills and not mixing Campy with Shimano was as obvious to us as pedals being sold in pairs. It’s this knowledge, to varying degrees, that allows us to understand the myriad of terms and industry jargon in use today and to have some idea what they mean. It’s this knowledge we all take for granted. But what about the poor customer? What about someone new to the industry? How do regular humans figure out what the hell we’re even talking about, let alone navigate the ‘soup’ that tends to result when the marketing speak gets spilled over the technical specs. This soup is made entirely from the ‘secret-sauce’ we spoke about in Part 1 - The Secret Sauce
12 | September 2025
Conundrum - and other ingredients that regular humans don’t recognise - except sometimes they do, they just know them by a different name on their planet. When we sell someone a bike, it’s done with the help of the ‘marketing specs’. They’re on the website. They’re on the price tag attached to the bike in-store. They’re in the ‘Brand Book’ the dealer refers to. They’re committed to memory by the sales staff. They are the broad overview of the technology and features of the bike with some key components listed to varying degrees of accuracy and detail. Look at the ‘specifications’ of the frame and fork on any marketing specs (the higher the price tag, the better) with a fresh set of eyes and take note. No other piece of documentation is more full of meaningless marketing terms, useless acronyms, and incomplete ‘specifications’. Yet the marketing specs are used to ‘compare’ bikes, to weigh them up against each other and choose one over the other, by customers and by sales staff. When most customers buy a bike they’re presented with a user manual, if the store even decides to hand it over, and
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